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Transnational Actors, Networks and Place Making

Course content

It is almost impossible today to imagine development at the
scale of the nation-state: global flows of people, information,
ideas, investments and remittances are now key determinants shaping
development at local levels. Development actors are no longer just
national governments. Instead, all kinds of transnational
actors—from companies to diaspora groups and NGOs—play a prominent
role in shaping development agendas, as do the transportation
infrastructures, new mobile technologies and social media that
facilitate such transnational activity. The “Global North” (North
America, Western Europe, Australia and Japan) is no longer taken
for granted as a source of inspiration for and funding of models of
development: around the BRICS initiative, new discourses of
development travel between countries in the Global South (Africa,
Latin America and Asia), accompanied by new resource flows, for
instance from China and India to Africa. But it is not just the
world order that is affected by global flows: established patterns
of development between urban centers and rural areas are also being
restructured through such flows, resulting in livelihood
transitions and new and intensified forms of mobility. In the
context of neoliberal governance and increasing securitization,
illegal flows moreover start to have a significant impact on
development trajectories.

Transnational Actors, Networks and Place Making equips
students with the skills to examine development beyond the
nation-state, to understand how global flows affect the seeming
coherence of previous models of development. It introduces students
to global flows that shape development agendas and outcomes
locally, with an emphasis on studying not just material but also
immaterial flows of ideas, discourses, and new forms of
connectivity. As a course that brings geography into conversation
with anthropology, students will learn how analytical approaches
that emphasize spatiality and relationality can help us understand
global flows today.

Describe current debates about global flows of people, capital
and ideas and how these are influenced by transnational networks
and actors.

Grasp how the established pattern of development between urban
centers and rural areas as well as between the Global North and
South is being restructured resulting in livelihood transitions and
new and intensified forms of mobility.

Understand and recognize the importance of changing scales and
geographies of development.

Skills

Identify key global flows of people, capital and ideas in, to
and from the Global South.

Be able to analyze how global flows shape development agendas
and outcomes in given local environments.

Communicate and discuss how global flows and transnational
networks and actors challenge the seeming coherence of previous
models of development.

Assess the potential impact of global, national and local
policies on global flows of people, capital and ideas in, to and
from the Global South.

Competences

Process relevant information about global flows and their impact
on outcomes in a given local environment.

Analyze, assess and apply results, methods, theory and data in
connection with global flows of people, capital and ideas in, to
and from the Global South.

Work effectively with cross-disciplinary problems related to
transnational actors and the new technologies of connectivity on an
individual basis as well as in teams.

The course will be based on a combination of lectures and
interactive seminars where students contribute actively through
group work, discussions, readings and oral and written
presentations. Each course theme will be framed by an introductory
lecture. The course will draw on relevant academic literature,
including theoretical perspectives and case studies from across the
Global South, as well as both quantitative and qualitative
datasets.

Oral examination (20 minutes) under invigilation. A week
before the exam the students are given a set of questions. At the
actual exam the student will randomly pick one of the questions
(not knowing which) and will then have 5 minutes to present his/her
answer. After the presentation, the student will be examined based
on his/her presentation and the syllabus for the course